DavNor Guv stresses need to first strengthen coops

DAVAO DEL NORTE, Nov. 04 (PIA)—Provincial Governor Rodolfo P. del Rosario  places more importance on strengthening cooperatives than on requiring them to  integrate and  federate to face the competitive challenge of an open economy.

In a press conference dealing with Cooperative concerns, Del Rosario saw no need yet to come up with legal policies at the provincial level to push co-ops to federate though “integration” already had became a growing international  and national concern of the sector.

Del Rosario understood the necessity for cooperatives to bind themselves together as member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) had already agreed to an open  by 2015.

But he wanted to give people in the co-op  sector “the opportunity to develop their own co-ops until they will realize the need to federate.”

“We go by the culture of the Filipinos,” he said while also pointing out the local government’s readiness to come up with measures to help local co-ops federate soon as they would feel the need to do it.

 “What’s important is for those big to keep them big and the small to help them grow,” he said.

Del Rosario revealed his long-time effort to assist cooperatives way back in 1998  at start of his stint as the Provincial Governor of Davao del Norte.

The education and training support  of the provincial government has gone on up to these days with Humber Cabunoc whom he has assigned to head the division on cooperatives under the Provincial Agriculture Office (PAGRO) and Sangguniang Panlalawigan Board Member Allan Dujali sitting as chair of the Provincial Cooperative Development Council (PCDC).

Cabunoc, in the same occasion, revealed that the provincial government continued to conduct basic coop education particularly on good governance, and that it held series of training on financial management, and other  education and training requirements of the Cooperative Development Authority (CDA).

Cabunoc made it clear that his office was looking for ways to prepare local cooperatives of the challenges that they would be facing once the ASEAN economy open in 2015.  (PIA 11/Jeanevive Duron-Abangan)